Wild At Heart

The next David Lynch I'll look at is Wild At Heart, which was released in 1990, and, per usual, was controversial. Some loved it (it won the Palm D'Or at Cannes), some despised it (it had huge walk-outs in its early screenings), and as usual, I come somewhere in the middle.

Based on a novel by Barry Gifford, many, including Lynch, describe it as "Romeo and Juliet in Hell." Indeed, the central motif is fire, as the opening credits are superimposed over a conflagration, and striking matches and burning cigarettes are given many close-ups.

The stars are Nicolas Cage and Laura Dern as Sailor and Lula, completely in love. In fact, their relationship is the most adult thing about the film, it's kind of a stable base that the rest of the madness teeters on. Dern's mother (Diane Ladd, her actual mother) is dead set against the pairing, and after failing to seduce Cage in a men's room, hires a man to kill him. Cage beats him to death, and after serving a few years, comes out of jail and he and Dern hit the road. Ladd sends her boyfriend, the mild-mannered detective Harry Dean Stanton, after them, but also involves a gangster, who brings in a weird menagerie of hired killers.

As long as the film rests on Cage and Dern's reliable shoulders, Wild At Heart works. We are reminded of when Cage was a good actor. Although he is basically doing an Elvis Presley impression (singing two of the King's songs) his gravitas is outstanding. Dern, in a highly sexualized role, manages to keep steady as well. You are thoroughly convinced these two are in love and that they will forgive anything.

The plot takes them to a rinky-dink town in Texas called Big Tuna, and the film comes off the rails somewhat. Willem Dafoe, as a maniacal criminal called Bobby Peru, basically takes over the movie, not to its benefit. A scene in which the pair are sitting around a table with a bunch of crazies just shows Lynch at his weirdest, and a scene that is totally superfluous to the film has Crispin Glover as Dern's cousin Dell, who among things, likes to keep cockroaches in his underwear. This is just weird to be weird.

Other oddball touches are Ladd smearing lipstick over her entire face, or having Grace Zabriskie as a killer with a leg brace, making voodoo like noises before she kills someone. Zabriskie is one of a few Twin Peaks performers (the series was Lynch's next project) appearing, along with Sherilyn Fenn as a car accident victim and Sheryl Lee as Glinda, the Good Witch of The North.

Yes, Glinda. Wild At Heart incorporates dozens of references to The Wizard Of Oz. These are not in the novel; Lynch described it as The Wizard Of Oz just walked into the movie. The problem is that the parallels aren't completely there. If Dern is Dorothy, then who is Cage? He's Elvis, but Presley was not in The Wizard Of Oz. Wild At Heart was a mixed metaphor.

The first time I saw the film I was working for Penthouse Variations and our editor took the staff on a field trip to see it, as it was notable for being a very sexual film. Indeed, Dern and Cage are in some steamy scenes, but as these things go there was not a lot of skin. I don't remember what our general reaction was.